The players of EUROfusion’s MST programme

The Medium-Sized Tokamak (MST) programme allows researchers to carry out experiments that cannot be done on JET, lets them complement and confirm JET results and broadens the experimental database. The three devices that are part of the EUROfusion MST programme are ASDEX Upgrade, MAST Upgrade, and TCV.

ASDEX Upgrade

ASDEX Upgrade is run by Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Garching, Germany. ASDEX Upgrade is equipped with a tungsten wall and it can create ITER-like high power loads at the reactor wall. It scales up to JET, which scales up to ITER, and thus enables a stepped approach to the development of ITER plasma regimes of operation.

The spherical tokamakMAST Upgrade is housed at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE). With its latest 2016 upgrade this spherical tokamak can investigate the super-X divertor – a magnetic configuration that spreads the heat loads at the divertor area – the area of the vessel wall which is in touch with the plasma edge.

TCV is a variable configuration tokamak for the study of differently shaped cross-sections of the plasma run by Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) in Lausanne, Switzerland. TCV experiments aim at investigating the proof of principle concepts of snowflake divertor configurations.

Acknowledgement

This work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018 and 2019-2020 under grant agreement No 633053. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission.